Shekou art program boosts cross-cultural exchange

Video and photo by Liu Xudong

A Maserati parked like a time machine — gleaming, low-slung, and impossibly aerodynamic — drew a crowd at the north wing plaza of the Baoneng All City mall in Shekou, where Italian flair met Chinese curiosity at the Chinese/Italian Artists Exchange Program that kicked off Saturday afternoon.

Visitors lined up to snap photos of the supercar showcase, part of a series of exchange activities hosted by the Nanshan District Foreign Affairs Bureau and the Shekou Subdistrict Office to create an immersive cultural experience and bring Chinese and Italian creativity into dialogue.

Coinciding with the 55th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic relations, the program also served as a celebration of the milestone, said an official with the Shekou Subdistrict Office at the opening ceremony.

Zhao Enzhe (C) introduces his sketches of a spaceship while his Italian counterpart Lorenzo Ala (R) looks on at the opening ceremony of the Chinese/Italian Artists Exchange Program at the Baoneng All City mall in Shekou on Saturday. 

Raphael Paul Cooper, China delegate for the Italy China Council Foundation (ICCF), said the foundation will use this event to further promote economic, trade, and cultural ties between Shenzhen and Italy and support Shenzhen’s development as an international cultural exchange hub.

The car display was only the surface attraction. Below ground in the B2 atrium, a different kind of engine fired up at 4:30 p.m. Italian writer and translator Francesco Verso and three other Italian and Chinese artists exchanged ideas with local science-fiction enthusiasts and creators during a panel. They explored everything from artificial intelligence ethics to visions of space exploration and offered a compact, high-energy masterclass in speculative storytelling.

The “Poetry over Tea, An Italian Poet’s Oriental Journey” event attracted a few dozen tea and poetry lovers Sunday morning.

Simone Chiatante, a member of Shenzhen University’s European Studies Center and a translator and writer, said he believes poetry and tea culture are important bridges for cross-cultural exchange.

He plans to explore how elements of traditional Chinese poetry might be integrated into Western verse so that the West can better appreciate China’s aesthetic heritage. Guests joined him in exploring poetic sensibilities and engaged in a lively discussion about the cultural differences among alcohol, coffee, and tea.

Local retiree Liu Jing, 70, spontaneously recited Xu Yuanchong’s English version of “Ascending the Stork Tower,” and the rhythmic interplay between Chinese and English won rounds of applause.

The program continued with a broad lineup of activities, including an illustration workshop paring Chinese and Italian artists with young creators, a campus initiative that brought Italian artists into local schools like the Guiwan School of Qianhai Innovative Education Group, and a Chinese-Italian food festival.

Italian sci-fi writer Francesco Verso said he was thrilled to participate in the exchange program, an idea conceived several years ago at a sci-fi convention in China. “I met Frank Ma at the convention, and we shared this idea of bringing international content to Shenzhen. The support from Nanshan District made this idea actually happen.”

The organizers said the program aims to spark cross-cultural conversions about technology and future imaginaries.